MANILA\u2014The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Peter Maurer, has called on governments to urgently address the humanitarian issue of missing people: those who disappeared during armed conflict or other situations of violence, natural disasters or migration.<\/p>\n
Speaking ahead of the International Day of the Disappeared on Aug. 30, Maurer said that concerted efforts were needed to ascertain and document the fate of people who had gone missing and to provide families left behind with answers and effective support.<\/p>\n
“This is a tragedy affecting millions, but it remains vastly unacknowledged and under-reported. Such indifference is extremely disturbing,\u201d Maurer said. \u201cDisappearances are often a sensitive social and political issue, but that is no excuse for inaction. Governments must generate the political will necessary to provide answers. Steps must be taken to prevent disappearances, and to collect all the information available when people do disappear, because, at some point, this information might help bring answers to families and other loved ones.”<\/p>\n
Exactly how many people are missing throughout the world is not known, but the ICRC estimates their number to be at least in the hundreds of thousands. They include combatants missing in action, children who became separated from their families when they fled their homes or were forced to join armed groups, detainees unable to contact their families, and internally displaced people and migrants who have lost touch with their loved ones. It should be remembered that large numbers of people are at risk of disappearing every year.<\/p>\n
The lack of accurate figures is itself part of the problem.<\/p>\n
Numbers cannot, however, convey the depth of suffering endured in each individual case.<\/p>\n